Slaves

Key to this is the sources of slaves. Whenever there is a shortage of slaves, something needs to be done to fill the gap. Sometimes, this was increasing the number of crimes that could be punished with slavery. Otherwise raiding and warfare would be needed.   Slaves were also frequently sourced from prisoners of war, the criminal justice system and piracy. So internally generated criminals in the human areas might be sent to other dwarven kingdoms. The Southron culture seems to mirror the sort of tribal warfare that was known in the real world for taking more slaves than there was demand for domestically. The Corsairs and Easterlings are both explicitly stated in my sources as slave cultures.   Another side effect of the decline of border protection on Gondor's southern border is the likelihood is the slave trade in the area. It is unlikely that domestic debtors and criminals would be enough to meet the demand of the dwarves for slaves. The local lords would probably use their own forces to conduct slave raids into Southron territory. After all, with the professional military of Gondor being pulled in too many directions, the feudal lords will probably be leaned on to pick up the slack. The same retreat of central authority would mean that it would be quite tempting for local lords to exploit this to get some slaving money. Border tribes might also make deals to raid further inland to get slaves to sell to Gondorian agents. This has historical roots in the Atlantic Slave Trade.   Those captured by the Barbary Pirates were often sold into slavery. Well, the lucky ones anyway. The ones that the pirates felt might get ransomed were reserved in the hopes that a solid reward would be paid. The remaining men were sold as galley slaves. The women became part of the harem. Possibly domestic workers. The ones too old, sick or young were thrown overboard. This was on top of the loot taken in the sometimes days of looting in the attacked village or the cargo of the ship.   Due to their Black Numenorean connections and proximity to Umbar, I would suspect that some tribes would be allied with Umbar. Which would mean some of these tribes, mainly the ones closer to the coast, would be involved in the Corsair dominated slave trade. Similarly, there would be a sort of piecemeal relationship between the Southrons and Gondor. Some tribes would cooperate more than others. Some would be more violent. The difference would probably be if they were directly raided by Gondor or if they benefited from the trade. But it is unlikely that permanent peace or war would be the norm with any southern fief or tribe. But it would generate enough revenue that some of the Corsair captains could be bribed with regular tribute into not raiding areas. Again, this would lessen but not eliminate the total raids. It would also be unequal as the richer areas would have more to pay. Those without such riches would still be plundered.   Rohan has little to no real state infrastructure to speak of, so it might deal with its criminals by sending them to dwarven mines. They might also raid Wild Men communities to sell to them. Both governments would struggle to finance an effective prison system, so imprisonment would be hard financially. Exile, another common tactic would be hard to enforce as well. Slavery was actually used in the medieval and ancient worlds for repayment of debts and as a punishment for crimes. Thus, it seems likely that Gondor and Rohan would use exporting slaves as a source of revenue and a way to remove problematic individuals as the same time.   Generally, people in the ancient and medieval worlds became slaves through one of four ways. The first three - abandonment as an infant, becoming a prisoner of war or pirates, or conviction for a crime - saw enslavement as an improvement over the other options. The other options were various and most unpleasant forms of death. The last was default on debts.   By the time the Atlantic Slave Trade took off, the African Empires became important middle men. These were too powerful relative to the Europeans for the colonial powers to take over the slave taking business directly. As the demand for slaves increased, so too did the revenues, kickbacks and bribes flowing to the elites of these African empires. Which naturally led to the increase in crimes punishable by enslavement and the wars waged for the sake of getting more slaves.   Which then led to the slavers moving further inland to feed demand. Which led to the wiping out whole villages similar to the Mideast trade. Those too young, old, sick or disabled were killed. All others were sent to the coast, loaded on to the ships and sent to the plantations. Roughly 90% were adults or teenagers. Women were more valuable in Africa - resulting in men representing 2/3 of the population sent to America.

Generally the first year or so at where the slave ended up involved seasoning and training them for their new role. The influx of people from all over the African continent plus their poor treatment meant that disease was still a problem. Discipline was harsher in this initial period to beat out any last hope of rebellion. These factors combined to mean a third of slaves died within the first year after their arrival at their final destination.   Those that survived this period were left to the sugar cane plantations or mines. Neither had humane working conditions or life expectancy. Safety standards were naturally much lower than for free labor. Beatings were the preferred punishment, even for trivial offenses.

Basically, slaves were not paid at all. But they could be the payment. Loot from captured settlements and dead enemies, plus the proceeds from the sale of prisoners into slavery supplemented the pay for post Marian reform legionaries.   The export of slaves could be quite lucrative though. The 1,500 to 3,000 slaves exported from the Libyan coast in the 1850s could account for two thirds of all revenue in the local ports. Between 1834 and 1859, the Sultan of Oman exported slaves through the Indian Ocean at a rate of between 6,500 to 19,000 a year. This was a solid quarter of government revenue.   The smell of the ship approaching the harbor was so strong that this was enough to announce the ship's arrival. But cannonades or special bells were used to officially announce the arrival. Inspections of the slaves and efforts to make them not look like sick skeletons took place after the slaves came on shore. Then there was an auction. When sales were final, they were branded again before being sent to their new owners.

Slaves received the worst housing, food and medical care one can expect to provide a person and have them live to the next day. All were over worked, under fed and overcrowded living conditions.

On top of slavery as a divide and conquer tactic, there was the common uses of it. The use of slavery for mining was common in the ancient and medieval world. In the US during the colonial period and in the south after the Civil War slavery and slave like practices were used to divide the lower classes, prevent effective union formation and apply downward pressure on the wages of free labor. Then, the Gulf Monarchies use slave like sweat shops and trapped immigrant labor to free their native population from the most unpleasant tasks. Lastly, the Gulf Monarchies use their mineral wealth to free their citizens from taxation while also providing welfare and patronage jobs.   Mazaheri, Nimah (2017). "Oil, Dissent, and Distribution". World Development. 99: 186–202. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.028.

Essentially, slaves are at the bottom of the most brutal and one sided relationship that I know of. As Matthew White points out, it was technically illegal to rape a mule. Which meant that mules had more legal protections than slaves.   The crews were treated so badly that their mortality was actually roughly the same. Slave crews were often paid the least, resulting in the scum of the sailing industry filling these positions. This was compounded by the f act the ships stank and the crews had a horrible reputation. So no one who could get a better job did. Issues also arose from the diseases that only the native Africans had immunity to. So there was high death rates from fights, above average executions for discipline issues and illness.

Slaves would be a big deal for Gondor's trade too, unfortunately. Due to the costs of handling incarceration, we can expect the death penalty to take more of a role in criminal punishments. This is also part of the reason that the stocks and similar punishments were used in Medieval England. But slavery was one punishment used too. Same for debtors. Then there are the dwarven kingdoms who would need those slaves. So it would be logical to use slaves as a source of government profit and criminal "justice" at the same time.   The demographics of the Atlantic Slave Trade in particular led to the invention of racism as we know it today. Which suggests to me that the racist notions held by the Gondorians towards the other human cultures does not sound that unlikely. Unjustifiable and unethical, but still predictable. The real world dislike of the slavers suggests that the opinions of Gondorians to the Corsairs would be similar. But the slave trade would also help partially explain why Gondor slowly reduced the military actions taken against them. Yes, they are historic enemies and understandably disliked. But key people would be making money off the trade.

One thing used in the Middle Eastern and Atlantic slave trades was the use of island bases off the coast to house captured slaves. They would be collected from the interior and taken to glorified forts used to warehouse the captives until a ship came to take them to market. We can assume that these places continued the poor food of the caravans, but added poor hygiene and serious overcrowding.   So, mines, harems and homes were the main work environments throughout most of European and Middle East history. In the Atlantic Slave Trade, 9% of the slaves were sent to mines and another 9% went to household staff. But once the American continents became the target of aggressive colonialism, this changed. Plantations became increasingly huge in terms of driving the slave trade. The Caribbean and Brazilian coasts began importing massive amounts of slaves. Sugar alone accounted for 55% of the demand for slaves imported to Europe's New World colonies.   Essentially, the Native Americans were effectively wiped out as a culture and reliable source of labor. But the formula the colonial powers were attempting to follow was sugar plantations plus slaves equals massive wealth. Slaves from Africa proved to be the "solution". Obviously, the ethical idea of not using slaves was not considered an option. This model proved so successful for them that it was replicated by British colonists to produce rice, cotton and tobacco in what became the first 13 US states.   It must be noted that this impacted the mortality rates a lot. We see this in the numbers across the regions that the Atlantic Slave Trade supplied. The Islands of Jamaica and Haiti had 1,614,000 slaves imported. But after the trade stopped, a total of 745,000 were left. Meanwhile, there were 427,500 imported to the US. There were 1.4 million in 1810 when the slave trade to there became officially illegal. As horrific as slavery is regardless of the when and where, there does appear to be regional variations that impact living conditions and life expectancy.

Housework was the steadiest task demanding slaves. This was most common in the ancient Arab, Greek and Roman cultures. However, prisoners of war were one of the more common sources of slaves. Which meant that sometimes there would be a sudden glut of slaves. In these cases something needed to be done with them. Mining, prostitution, public works projects, human sacrifices and gladiator combat picked up the slack depending on local culture and time period.   The Eunuchs demanded in Arab societies had the highest cost. Due to the the impacts of the surgery, there was a demand in high courts to protect the harems. But I do not see any evidence for harems as such in Middle Earth. But they might be useful as the chief servants in noble households or even in royal courts. This and possibly the harems, would be most pronounced in Easterling culture with its unfortunate racial inspiration in "Arab" and "Persian" culture.   Due to the poor medical practices of the time adding on to the already high mortality rate, brutal discipline and drowing in transport, it apparently took 200 deaths to produce a single success. But they did not have the same gender based restrictions placed on them. Which actually increased their power. Many in history were able to move freely between the male and female worlds of the Royal Courts. Which allowed the ambitious ones to participate in the schemes of the Royal women. These plots led to many deposed rulers.   Ships were also a major source of demand. In the ancient world, this work was done by free wage labor. But in the Medieval period, slaves became more common.

So, the brutality was so great one tended to die or be driven to the point one wishes to die. The captives were normally taken in surprise attacks where all those that resisted were killed. Everyone else - usually meaning women and kids - were marched to the coast. At the end of the process, over half of the villages in some territories were wiped out.   Food for these caravans was hard to get sometimes. Big game in some areas was hunted to local extinction to provide food. This would partially explain the rarity of oilphaunts. But this also upped the misery of the humans. Lions discovered they had a taste for human flesh after this big game decline forced the lions to feast on the horrifically common corpses of the dead captives.   Three to five died in the Mideast trade for every one who made it to market. Those lucky ones got to market shackled, chained and already scarred by the constant whipping. Anything from exhaustion, heat stroke, thirst and disease could kill. In some cases, whole caravans would disappear. But because the cost to acquire each slave was cheap and the final price was extremely high. Which meant that there was little incentive to protect the slaves, despite what business logic would suggest.   The galley slaves had especially brutal working conditions. There was no sleep past the occasional nap. These were while still chained to the benches on which they rowed. This continued day or night, sun or rain. When the ship went down, so did the slaves. Assuming they were not worked to death before.   While these conditions were extreme, no slaves had it good. The estimates of Matthew White is that the death rate for slaves in the Middle East appears to be 6 times that of the free population. The transportation cost 3 lives for every 2 delivered alive. In the Atlantic Slave Trade, it is estimated that half of the people captured died in the marches to the coast or while waiting in the coastal prisons. Which shouldn't come as a surprise given their treatment. The captives were chained together and beaten to march further and faster than physically possible. The exhaustion led to many collapsing, which led to them being murdered. When people are treated like this over the hundreds of miles and months these trips frequently took, the paths became littered with bones.   Things did not improve after. The ships sailed up and down the coast, picking up a few at a time as they hunted for the best deals. Often, the local merchants would bring the slaves out to the main ships in canoes so the Europeans could avoid the diseases on the coast. At this point, one of two things happened. The first was the slave was purchased, branded with a hot iron and shoved into the cargo hold naked. The remainder were killed.   The ships were horrible too. The trip typically involved 200-400 on each trip. These lasted 3 to 4 months. Slaves were chained most of the time in the cramped hold which always smelled of human waste. On average, 10% to 15% died in transit.